To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed the entire object, paste this HTML in websiteTo link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed this page, paste this HTML in website

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Photos of award-winning author T. C. Boyle at the 47th Literary Luncheon.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 37 | www.dailytrojan.com TUESday, march 11, 2008
Behind ‘talk talk’
Award-winning author and USC professor
T.C. Boyle was honored by the
Friends of the USC Libraries. 5
bear trap
The No. 10 men’s tennis team beats
No. 11 Baylor, 6-1, Sunday to stay
undefeated at Marks Stadium. 12
Anti-plagiarism
site questioned
By TAYLOR FRIEDMAN
Daily Trojan
Since its creation in 1996,
Turnitin.com, an anti-plagiarism site,
has been continually scrutinized by
students and teachers questioning
its legality and practicality, culmi-nating
with a lawsuit that ended in
January.
USC began using Turnitin in
conjunction with Blackboard in Au-gust
2006, paying $30,000 for the
program in order to prevent plagia-rism,
which remains the “most fre-quently
violated academic code,” said
Raquel Torres-Retana, the director of
the Office of Student Judicial Affairs
and Community Standards.
SJACS reported 179 cases of pla-giarism
in the 2005-2006 academic
year and 166 cases from 2006-2007.
“USC’s inclusion of Turnitin came
about as a demand from faculty in
the writing programs as a way to
level the playing field. The crux of it
all was that faculty members were
receiving complaints about students
plagiarizing from other students,
who used online services and other
students’ papers to plagiarize,” said
Otto Khera, the interim director of
the Center for Scholarly Technology.
Turnitin primarily detects un-original
work. After a student sub-mits
a paper through Turnitin, their
professor receives an originality re-port
showing how much of the stu-dent’s
work is borrowed from other
sources. It also lets students peer
review each other’s work and allows
professors to give more detailed feed-back.
The site’s growing database is its
selling point. The more sources it has
access to, the better the odds of catch-ing
plagiarism. The site partners with
8,500 institutions in 103 countries
and receives 125,000 papers a day.
Despite its intentions, however,
Turnitin has been a source of con-troversy
among high school and col-lege
students who claim Turnitin is
profiting off students without fair
compensation.
In 2006, two high school students
from McLean High School in Virginia
and two students from an Arizona
high school challenged Turnitin, ar-guing
it violated their intellectual
property rights by incorporating their
submitted work into its database of
billions of sources, including public
domain materials, manuscripts and
Turnitin.com allows
professors to determine if
students are plagiarizing.
| see Turnitin, page 3 |
Hot Dog Chain Makes Campus Stop
A Wienerschnitzel stand
in front of Tommy Trojan
gave away free hot dogs and
fries to students to promote
Program Board. A division of
the Undergraduate Student
Government, Program Board
plans events on campus for stu-
Joshua Sy | Daily Trojan
dents. It provided free food
Monday to encourage stu-dents
to apply for positions in
Program Board for next year.
Students establish
leadership fraternity
By NICOLE DAILO
Daily Trojan
Launching a student organiza-tion
entirely from scratch might
have its challenges, but that didn’t
faze the seven founders of Delta
Omega Zeta, the newest leadership
fraternity to come to USC.
Created as a project for USC
President Steven B. Sample’s lead-ership
class, the co-ed fraternity
has secured a place as a campus
organization, having been officially
recognized by the Office of Campus
Activities. Though still in its early
stages, Delta Omega Zeta wasted
no time in building its membership
numbers, recently inducting 23 oth-er
students.
While the fraternity originated
as a class assignment, the found-ing
members felt the organization
was the best way to meet a necessity
on campus that other clubs failed
to sufficiently address, said Max
Slavkin, director of internal rela-tions
for DOZ and vice president
of Undergraduate Student Govern-ment.
“We saw a gap on the USC
campus. Leadership was always a
tool to something else and was never
examined on its own,” Slavkin said.
“We thought it was a valuable thing
we were getting in this class, and [it
Delta Omega Zeta seeks
to teach students how to
become better leaders.
| see Leaders, page 2 |
Opinion |
The costs of oil will affect
Americans in new ways,
writes columnist Tim
Strube. PAGE 4
College students explore new faiths
By TIFFANIE WU
Daily Trojan
Findings from a Pew Forum study
show college students in America
are changing religious tides, which
is also apparent at USC.
The survey results indicate an
emerging trend that Americans,
specifically young adults, are now
more likely to switch religions or
consider themselves religiously un-affiliated
than in the past.
“Why is there so much mobil-ity?”
asked Donald Miller, director
of the USC Center for Religion and
Civic Culture and professor of re-ligion.
“One answer to that is that
there’s a tremendous marketplace
of different religious options, liter-ally
thousands of different choices.
So the idea that you have to stick
with the religion of your parents
or your grandparents, that notion
has eroded … and [Americans] also
feel free to not affiliate with any
religion, particularly ... college stu-dents.”
The study reported that more
than a quarter of American adults
have left the faith they were raised
in. About a third of Americans
were raised Catholic, but less than a
quarter consider themselves Catho-lic
today.
The shift for Americans can be
attributed to more choices, Miller
said.
“The more exposure you have to
different ways of life, including dif-ferent
religious options, the freer
you are to select one or another or
choose nothing,” he said.
But for college students, there
are other influential factors.
Miller said he considers religious
experimentation to be part of a
healthy developmental cycle.
“College is a time to experiment,
to try on other things, look at other
possibilities, establish your own
identity, and that may even require
breaking away from the religion
of your childhood,” Miller said. “I
think that’s an actually healthy de-
A survey shows that most
Americans change religious
practices during their lives.
| see Religion, page 2 |
Religion on Campus:
USC plays host to a variety of religious groups and
organizations, supporting faiths such as Christianity,
Judaism and Islam among others:
• Atheist
• Baha’i
• Buddhist
• Christian
• Hindu
• Falun Gong
• Jain
• Jewish
• Muslim
• Pagan/Wiccan
• Quaker
• Sikh
• Unitarian Universalist
Of the 65 religious organizations currently active on campus:
• 75% Are affiliated
with some sect of
Christianity
• 5% Are Jewish
• 14% Are the only
organization for their
religion
http://www.usc.edu/programs/religious_life/

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Photos of award-winning author T. C. Boyle at the 47th Literary Luncheon.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 37 | www.dailytrojan.com TUESday, march 11, 2008
Behind ‘talk talk’
Award-winning author and USC professor
T.C. Boyle was honored by the
Friends of the USC Libraries. 5
bear trap
The No. 10 men’s tennis team beats
No. 11 Baylor, 6-1, Sunday to stay
undefeated at Marks Stadium. 12
Anti-plagiarism
site questioned
By TAYLOR FRIEDMAN
Daily Trojan
Since its creation in 1996,
Turnitin.com, an anti-plagiarism site,
has been continually scrutinized by
students and teachers questioning
its legality and practicality, culmi-nating
with a lawsuit that ended in
January.
USC began using Turnitin in
conjunction with Blackboard in Au-gust
2006, paying $30,000 for the
program in order to prevent plagia-rism,
which remains the “most fre-quently
violated academic code,” said
Raquel Torres-Retana, the director of
the Office of Student Judicial Affairs
and Community Standards.
SJACS reported 179 cases of pla-giarism
in the 2005-2006 academic
year and 166 cases from 2006-2007.
“USC’s inclusion of Turnitin came
about as a demand from faculty in
the writing programs as a way to
level the playing field. The crux of it
all was that faculty members were
receiving complaints about students
plagiarizing from other students,
who used online services and other
students’ papers to plagiarize,” said
Otto Khera, the interim director of
the Center for Scholarly Technology.
Turnitin primarily detects un-original
work. After a student sub-mits
a paper through Turnitin, their
professor receives an originality re-port
showing how much of the stu-dent’s
work is borrowed from other
sources. It also lets students peer
review each other’s work and allows
professors to give more detailed feed-back.
The site’s growing database is its
selling point. The more sources it has
access to, the better the odds of catch-ing
plagiarism. The site partners with
8,500 institutions in 103 countries
and receives 125,000 papers a day.
Despite its intentions, however,
Turnitin has been a source of con-troversy
among high school and col-lege
students who claim Turnitin is
profiting off students without fair
compensation.
In 2006, two high school students
from McLean High School in Virginia
and two students from an Arizona
high school challenged Turnitin, ar-guing
it violated their intellectual
property rights by incorporating their
submitted work into its database of
billions of sources, including public
domain materials, manuscripts and
Turnitin.com allows
professors to determine if
students are plagiarizing.
| see Turnitin, page 3 |
Hot Dog Chain Makes Campus Stop
A Wienerschnitzel stand
in front of Tommy Trojan
gave away free hot dogs and
fries to students to promote
Program Board. A division of
the Undergraduate Student
Government, Program Board
plans events on campus for stu-
Joshua Sy | Daily Trojan
dents. It provided free food
Monday to encourage stu-dents
to apply for positions in
Program Board for next year.
Students establish
leadership fraternity
By NICOLE DAILO
Daily Trojan
Launching a student organiza-tion
entirely from scratch might
have its challenges, but that didn’t
faze the seven founders of Delta
Omega Zeta, the newest leadership
fraternity to come to USC.
Created as a project for USC
President Steven B. Sample’s lead-ership
class, the co-ed fraternity
has secured a place as a campus
organization, having been officially
recognized by the Office of Campus
Activities. Though still in its early
stages, Delta Omega Zeta wasted
no time in building its membership
numbers, recently inducting 23 oth-er
students.
While the fraternity originated
as a class assignment, the found-ing
members felt the organization
was the best way to meet a necessity
on campus that other clubs failed
to sufficiently address, said Max
Slavkin, director of internal rela-tions
for DOZ and vice president
of Undergraduate Student Govern-ment.
“We saw a gap on the USC
campus. Leadership was always a
tool to something else and was never
examined on its own,” Slavkin said.
“We thought it was a valuable thing
we were getting in this class, and [it
Delta Omega Zeta seeks
to teach students how to
become better leaders.
| see Leaders, page 2 |
Opinion |
The costs of oil will affect
Americans in new ways,
writes columnist Tim
Strube. PAGE 4
College students explore new faiths
By TIFFANIE WU
Daily Trojan
Findings from a Pew Forum study
show college students in America
are changing religious tides, which
is also apparent at USC.
The survey results indicate an
emerging trend that Americans,
specifically young adults, are now
more likely to switch religions or
consider themselves religiously un-affiliated
than in the past.
“Why is there so much mobil-ity?”
asked Donald Miller, director
of the USC Center for Religion and
Civic Culture and professor of re-ligion.
“One answer to that is that
there’s a tremendous marketplace
of different religious options, liter-ally
thousands of different choices.
So the idea that you have to stick
with the religion of your parents
or your grandparents, that notion
has eroded … and [Americans] also
feel free to not affiliate with any
religion, particularly ... college stu-dents.”
The study reported that more
than a quarter of American adults
have left the faith they were raised
in. About a third of Americans
were raised Catholic, but less than a
quarter consider themselves Catho-lic
today.
The shift for Americans can be
attributed to more choices, Miller
said.
“The more exposure you have to
different ways of life, including dif-ferent
religious options, the freer
you are to select one or another or
choose nothing,” he said.
But for college students, there
are other influential factors.
Miller said he considers religious
experimentation to be part of a
healthy developmental cycle.
“College is a time to experiment,
to try on other things, look at other
possibilities, establish your own
identity, and that may even require
breaking away from the religion
of your childhood,” Miller said. “I
think that’s an actually healthy de-
A survey shows that most
Americans change religious
practices during their lives.
| see Religion, page 2 |
Religion on Campus:
USC plays host to a variety of religious groups and
organizations, supporting faiths such as Christianity,
Judaism and Islam among others:
• Atheist
• Baha’i
• Buddhist
• Christian
• Hindu
• Falun Gong
• Jain
• Jewish
• Muslim
• Pagan/Wiccan
• Quaker
• Sikh
• Unitarian Universalist
Of the 65 religious organizations currently active on campus:
• 75% Are affiliated
with some sect of
Christianity
• 5% Are Jewish
• 14% Are the only
organization for their
religion
http://www.usc.edu/programs/religious_life/